


A Testament Of Youth

by 930_TURBO



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, World War I based, cut me some slack for not knowing how to tag, this is my first time posting on this site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25235098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/930_TURBO/pseuds/930_TURBO
Summary: In the midst of a brutal war for Fodlan, an officer writes a letter to his father about the lies he was told about war in his youth.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	A Testament Of Youth

_My name is Lieutenant Ferdinand von Aegir. I am the commanding officer for the 6th Dragoon Regiment, Adrestian Empire. If you manage to find this letter, I have either lost it, or more than likely, I have passed on in this awful, brutal war. Nevertheless, if either of these events have occurred, please send this to my father, the Duke Ludwig von Aegir. Show him that this is what I falsely believed from his past regaling of his stories. And how it cost him his son._

* * *

All of my life, I was led to believe that war was ultimately the greatest proving ground a young man could ever find himself in. It separated the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys. To survive war was to be the way that you made your place within life. Of course, my father, Ludwig von Aegir, was once a decorated war hero for the Adrestian Empire - beating back enemies from her borders, and attaining the glory that would set him for a lifetime. It was ironic, considering what type of man Duke Aegir is now, and the reputation he leads of being a louse who is more focused on getting kickbacks for those traveling through his lands, and how that trickled down to me, his son, his beloved son. To many within the Adrestian nobility that I have spent my entire life commiserating with, their contempt for my father was visible and cutting, and they believed that the youngest son would be cut from the same cloth. Sins of the father. To be honest, the more I think about it, the more they might have been right. Try as I might, I was never going to be able to outrun what my father had done.

I had the frankly silly belief that I was going to rise above what my father had become in his later years, away from his glory years, and be my own man. And what better way than to go into the military? To become like the war hero that my father regaled in his youth, and to bring honor and glory to the Adrestian Empire and most importantly, the Aegir family name.

If only I knew what was coming on the horizon. Of course, being a part of the nobility via your father, who controlled lands within the Empire, meant that you were given some looks into the government processes of the Adrestian Empire, but I had no real glimpses into the inner machinations of the government of the Empire. I knew little about what was transpiring behind the scenes, the preparations for total war on the continent of Fodlan. How the Adrestian Empire and her leader, the venerable and power hungry Edelgard, was determined to take over the continent with what she believed to be a quick and decisive win with the vast man-power and technological advantage they held.

I remember where I was when I heard the news that a prominent diplomat within the Empire’s government had been murdered by ‘terrorists’, highly speculated to be from the Kingdom of Faerghus. I didn’t know st the time that the murder was in reality performed by the Empire as an easy way to sell war to the populace, easy to do when all three nations are powder kegs looking for the one spark to ignite war across the continent, with vassal states looking to align themselves with whoever was strongest and best equipped to survive the conflict that was inevitably ahead. By that point, I had already been a part of the military, having joined one of the Adrestian Empire’s most distinguished cavalry units, the 1st Cavalry Brigade. Of course, the sins of the father applied to here too, with many soldiers in other cavalry units thinking that my disgrace of a father greased palms in order to get his only son in a command position within an elite cavalry unit. I knew this wasn’t the case, and my men too, knew that I got to where I was through combat, and through distinguished merit, and not nepotism. But really, why bother trying to fight it? Military men were a stubborn sort, and what they saw, and indeed, heard, was a pretty boy on top of a horse with honors and a rank that told them to submit, to follow my orders. That type of resentment cuts deep, and doesn’t go away. By that point in time I didn’t fight it, and I had false hope that my actions and my leadership abilities in battle would allow people to see through my father’s actions which have no bearing on me as a leader of men in battle. Oh how wrong I was. So very wrong.

I expected this to be a quick and decisive war. How could it not be? The leadership of the Empire told us soldiers that we would be home in time for Saint Cichol Day, that they would roll over the Kingdom and the Leicester Alliance with the combined might of its armies and navy. And we nearly did make it a quick and decisive war. That was, until the Kingdom dug in its heels, with support from the Alliance, and defended like lions. Our forces were only 10 miles out from taking Fhirdiad...10 miles! And yet…

It wasn’t long after this frenzied defense from the combined forces of the Alliance and Kingdom that the war truly revealed itself. A stalemate, one marked by heavy attrition, unfathomable losses of life, and inexcusable tactical failures for slivers of land that ultimately, meant little in the grand scheme of life. Fodlan and her beautiful lands had been ripped apart, possibly permanently, scars opening up in the lands from the mountains to the lowland beaches on the coast. Trenches criss-crossed the landscape, armies fighting for a few hundred yards, maybe a mile, of land for months at a time. Combatants, on all sides, fearful of whatever lay beyond the parapet of the trenches that we considered our new home.

That felt like so long ago. That’s because it was, four years ago. Since then, the horrors of war revealed themselves to me, the brutality of it all, the senseless violence. I was not immune, no one was. And all this time, I simply cannot believe I seriously thought my father was right about any of his lies that said war was an exercise in glory. Was it, when men were dying pointless deaths amidst the rain and quagmire of mud and explosives? Brutal cold that came from the north of Faerghus during the winter months causing frostbite?

I’m truly amazed that I’ve managed to survive this long. The 1st Cavalry Brigade was decimated in the offensive that was supposed to take over Fodlan’s Fangs a year and a half ago. Empire high command soon dissolved the 1st Cavalry Brigade and combined them with the 5th Dragoons to create the 6th Dragoon Regiment, and once again, the beliefs that were held by the men about my position within the regiment were brought to a head. I simply could not believe it. People still believed I was unfit for leadership, my position having been presented as an act of nepotism, while my men, men I trusted and fought with, were dying in the trenches and the no man's land between said trenches? There were a few times where I had lost my temper at my men, and had to be stopped from fighting them.

But that was then. This was the now, the horrific now that begged to be taken out of its misery like a dog that was limping down the road. There were some points where I felt like taking my own life. What point was there in surviving? Even if somebody - anybody, by this point, I could not care one iota who - won this brutal war, I would simply be coming into a land ravaged by an apocalyptic event, one that could never be repaired. Those who came back would be forever changed, myself included. Peace was simply a branch that was just a little bit too far for the hand to reach over the wide chasm that was this war. I certainly would rather be sucked into the abyss of death then live in the aftermath of what I have participated in as a cog.

The High Command believes that the next battle that we are gearing up towards - a battle at Gronder Field, will be the decisive blow to, if not end this war, then push towards Fhirdiad and make up the ground that we lost in the retreat away from the Kingdom, when we built these trenches that criss-cross these lands. I hope that this is the last battle that I ever participate in, either through injury, or preferably, through death. I do not wish to find myself in the thick of battle anymore. What I have seen, what I have heard, and indeed, what I have experienced, is simply too much for me to bear.

Father, if you receive this letter, I want to make it clear, in explicit terms: you’re a liar. You’re a man so obsessed with your own legacy from the past that you lead your son to believe those lies. Battle is not a proving ground, it never was. It is, however, a great equalizer. We all die, we all lose our youth, we all devolve, on the same grounds. We believe the lies of those in command. I just managed to believe the lies of my father, and all it has caused me is pain in knowing that I was too bull-headed to have a second thought about what the true price of war is.

_FvA_

_5th Day of the Harpstring Moon, Imperial Year 1184_

* * *

_The Battle of Gronder Field was a success, relative to the stalemates and battles of attrition that marked the war for the proceeding two and a half years from the first advances towards the Kingdom by the Adrestian Empire. However, Lieutenant Ferdinand von Aegir was not as lucky. The 6th Dragoon Regiment, able to finally use the relatively flat terrain of Gronder Field to their advantage with fast horses, instead of being in the trenches and crossing the no man’s land with the rest of the soldiers, managed to break through the trench lines that crossed the open field, but their leader and commanding officer had the legs of his trusty steed shot out from underneath him by a machine gun, causing him to pitch forward into the hail of fire._

_Ferdinand von Aegir was only 25 years old. He is survived by his father, the Duke of Aegir, and his mother. He was unmarried._

**Author's Note:**

> This is really just me spending an evening writing out something small and based around my favorite history topic: World War I. I tried to adapt as best as I could. Critique and compliments are appreciated, this is the first time in a long time I've done something like this.


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